First the naked Minister, now the naked Police Commissioner and Attorney General. This government is taking too many liberties with its civil liberties agenda. Seriously now, it was bad enough to have allegations of Minister Cardona au naturel in Germany – allegations that Cardona may now never be forced to confront.
Jonathan Ferris, the former police inspector and FIAU senior officer who was taken off his FIAU investigations when they got too close to government figures and then unceremoniously fired, has effectively stripped Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar and Attorney General (AG) Peter Grech of their last shared fig-leaf, the final vestige of their credibility.
In a series of interviews, Ferris has declared that the Police Force and the AG’s office had actionable information on money laundering and other possible crimes to allow – nay, require – them to immediately proceed in terms of their legal remits. But they did nothing.
Ferris sounds rock-solid credible. He has challenged the government to sue him for libel, saying that this would release him of confidentiality constraints and leave him free to spill all the beans on Panama-Pilatusgate. Someone must be terrified of this possibility; Ferris has already taken steps so that the truth is still told if something does happen to him.
I don’t know what is more bone-chilling: that Ferris has uncovered Cutajar and Grech’s full frontal shamefulness and confirmed Malta’s termitisation of the rule of law, or that he is trying to protect himself by playing such a desperately dangerous game.
For make no mistake: Ferris is no fool. Rather than fleeing the country like Pilatus Bank whistleblower Maria Efinova, Ferris is staring the tiger in the eye and daring it to jump. His courage has Daphne’s pedigree, and indeed ‘his’ tiger could well be the same one that has already devoured her. But even if they are two different beasts, Ferris is confirming that they have been let loose by the same enabling actions of Joseph Muscat and his coterie.
Ferris clearly feels that he, perhaps his family, are in danger. Who will protect him effectively? The same Commissioner he is accusing of much more than incompetence? Who did not see to Daphne’s protection when she was clearly isolated and in danger, like Ferris is now?
We are now told that Commissioner Cutajar has contacted Ferris to offer him protection. How thoughtful, and of course in the highest traditions of rescue operations, much like how pyromaniac firefighters courteously ask those trapped in a burning house whether they want to be helped.
Jonathan Ferris has effectively stripped the Police Commissioner and Attorney General of their last shared fig-leaf
But action has been taken, claims the government. Ferris’ response has been as wry as it was succinct: the protection must be so incredibly discrete that he, a seasoned police officer, is not aware of it!
The claims of political interference in police work by then-Interior Minister Carmelo Abela are not in the same life-threatening category as Panama-Pilatusgate, but they are serious nonetheless. In any normally-functioning democracy, such claims would immediately trigger a political investigation and the government would rapidly come to see the offending minister as radioactive.
But the Maltese bar is now so low it is practically digging its own trench latrine. When ministers can nonchalantly walk away from accusations of gross sexual and financial misconduct, proven nepotism and sundry other abuses of power, what’s a phone call between friends?
Minister Abela may well have been just requesting information, as any minister does. But in the current toxic post-truth, post-law atmosphere brought about by the government he forms part of, he will never get a proper hearing and will not be able to shake off the pointing finger. That’s called being hoist with your own petard.
Meanwhile, we await the outcomes and concrete effects, if any, of the investigation of the European Parliament delegation now in Malta. But don’t hold your breath. Today’s rally by the Civil Society Network is one of the very few ways how ordinary people can support Jonathan Ferris, the honest policeman who, unlike his Commissioner, just wants to do his duty.
Afraid in church?
What did Adrian Delia mean when he said we are no longer safe to go to Church? Has Joseph Muscat’s government infiltrated the nation’s sacristies, waiting to pounce on all who confess to be anti-Labour? Are Azerbaijani hitmen lurking in the bell towers? Has ISIS poisoned the communion wafers?
These verbal or visual theatrics (such as when Delia went ringing the doorbell of the Marsa Police Station) may be par for the course in a courtroom and sweet solace for the average PN headbanger. But they have no place in sober politics especially in the tense and uncertain times we live in.
Does he not realise that in a wider context, ‘not safe in our churches’ has ugly resonances with the recent fundamentalist atrocities against Christians and Muslims just south of us? Was this a Freudian slip, a populist sop or just another neophyte blunder?
sandrospiteri1965@gmail.com